Cumbersome
adjective
Difficult to handle or use because of size or weight.
Moving the heavy table was a cumbersome task.
Often appears as...
- cumbersome task
- cumbersome machinery
Usage tips
Disapproving
adjective
Complicated and therefore inefficient and slow.
The company's cumbersome procedures hindered progress.
Often appears as...
- cumbersome procedures
- cumbersome system
Usage tips
Disapproving
adjective
Difficult to handle or use because of size or weight.
Moving the heavy table was a cumbersome task.
Often appears as...
- cumbersome task
- cumbersome machinery
Usage tips
Disapproving
adjective
Complicated and therefore inefficient and slow.
The company's cumbersome procedures hindered progress.
Often appears as...
- cumbersome procedures
- cumbersome system
Usage tips
Disapproving
Definition 1 of 2
Pro Tip 1/3Physical Burden
Use 'cumbersome' to describe objects that are hard to move or handle because of their weight or size.
Packing the cumbersome sculpture required extra hands.
Pro Tip 2/3Spatial Awareness
'Cumbersome' is handy when talking about items that take up too much space, making areas hard to navigate.
The cumbersome boxes in the hallway made it difficult to walk through.
Pro Tip 3/3Prolonged Effort
Items aren't momentarily cumbersome; the term implies a prolonged or continuous state of difficulty in handling.
We left the cumbersome ladder outside due to its size.
Pro Tip 1/3Physical Burden
Use 'cumbersome' to describe objects that are hard to move or handle because of their weight or size.
Packing the cumbersome sculpture required extra hands.
Pro Tip 2/3Spatial Awareness
'Cumbersome' is handy when talking about items that take up too much space, making areas hard to navigate.
The cumbersome boxes in the hallway made it difficult to walk through.
Pro Tip 3/3Prolonged Effort
Items aren't momentarily cumbersome; the term implies a prolonged or continuous state of difficulty in handling.
We left the cumbersome ladder outside due to its size.
Pro Tip 1/3Physical Burden
Use 'cumbersome' to describe objects that are hard to move or handle because of their weight or size.
Packing the cumbersome sculpture required extra hands.
Pro Tip 2/3Spatial Awareness
'Cumbersome' is handy when talking about items that take up too much space, making areas hard to navigate.
The cumbersome boxes in the hallway made it difficult to walk through.
Pro Tip 3/3Prolonged Effort
Items aren't momentarily cumbersome; the term implies a prolonged or continuous state of difficulty in handling.
We left the cumbersome ladder outside due to its size.
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Video examples
Meditations on the...
These are big and cumbersome, taking only one frame at a time before you have to change the film. To check the focus, you have to put your head under a black cloth and use a magnifying glass. So as I photographed Rob using this very old technology, he filmed me using the camera in his eye, somewhat the opposite end of the technology spectrum. But I wanted to delve deeper
Video examples
A brief history of...
If a numeral appeared before one with a higher value, it would be subtracted rather than added. But even with this innovation, it was still a cumbersome method for writing large numbers. The way to a more useful and elegant system lay in something called positional notation.
Video examples
Risk Takers: Working...
there are no vaccines and there are no therapies. And there are very few labs in the world that are capable of working with those agents. So what is it like to work in the lab? It's fun sometimes. It's cumbersome all the time. And everything takes about
Video examples
Where do math symbols...
Characters are often found representing quantities that are unknown, and the relationships between variables. They also stand in for specific numbers that show up frequently but would be cumbersome or impossible to fully write out in decimal form.
Video examples
The future of money PIPE...
are a little bit slow and a little bit cumbersome. But the next generation is going to be so much better and so much faster. Cryptocurrencies are the first step to a world with a global programmable money. And in a world with programmable money,
Video examples
How your brain decides...
Instead of a fitness indicator, scientists invoke a handicap principle. The most commonly cited example of a handicap is the peacock's tail. This beautiful but cumbersome tail doesn't exactly help the peacock
Video examples
Karen Armstrong: 2008...
The importance of this is that this is -- I can see some of you starting to look worried, because you think it's a slow and cumbersome body -- but what the United Nations can do is give us some neutrality,
Video examples
How Bicycles Changed...
The bicycle offered them a way of freedom. How do you ride it? With great courage and dexterity, of which you are very capable. And how do you peddle wearing such cumbersome things? Carefully.
Video examples
Killer Whales and Sonar...
behavior of the boats was a useful guide to the whereabouts of the herring and because they don't need cumbersome nets the whales can get in quick and grab some action ahead of the competition
Video examples
Art made of the air we...
It's immediate, vital and intimate, as well as being amorphous and cumbersome. And yet, it's so easily forgotten. Climate change is the collective self-portrait of humanity.
Video examples
Meditations on the...
These are big and cumbersome, taking only one frame at a time before you have to change the film. To check the focus, you have to put your head under a black cloth and use a magnifying glass. So as I photographed Rob using this very old technology, he filmed me using the camera in his eye, somewhat the opposite end of the technology spectrum. But I wanted to delve deeper
Video examples
A brief history of...
If a numeral appeared before one with a higher value, it would be subtracted rather than added. But even with this innovation, it was still a cumbersome method for writing large numbers. The way to a more useful and elegant system lay in something called positional notation.
Video examples
Risk Takers: Working...
there are no vaccines and there are no therapies. And there are very few labs in the world that are capable of working with those agents. So what is it like to work in the lab? It's fun sometimes. It's cumbersome all the time. And everything takes about
Video examples
Where do math symbols...
Characters are often found representing quantities that are unknown, and the relationships between variables. They also stand in for specific numbers that show up frequently but would be cumbersome or impossible to fully write out in decimal form.
Video examples
The future of money PIPE...
are a little bit slow and a little bit cumbersome. But the next generation is going to be so much better and so much faster. Cryptocurrencies are the first step to a world with a global programmable money. And in a world with programmable money,
Video examples
How your brain decides...
Instead of a fitness indicator, scientists invoke a handicap principle. The most commonly cited example of a handicap is the peacock's tail. This beautiful but cumbersome tail doesn't exactly help the peacock
Video examples
Karen Armstrong: 2008...
The importance of this is that this is -- I can see some of you starting to look worried, because you think it's a slow and cumbersome body -- but what the United Nations can do is give us some neutrality,
Video examples
How Bicycles Changed...
The bicycle offered them a way of freedom. How do you ride it? With great courage and dexterity, of which you are very capable. And how do you peddle wearing such cumbersome things? Carefully.
Video examples
Killer Whales and Sonar...
behavior of the boats was a useful guide to the whereabouts of the herring and because they don't need cumbersome nets the whales can get in quick and grab some action ahead of the competition
Video examples
Art made of the air we...
It's immediate, vital and intimate, as well as being amorphous and cumbersome. And yet, it's so easily forgotten. Climate change is the collective self-portrait of humanity.
Example 1 of 10
Quote examples
David Shulkin
American Public Servant
If there is evidence that an employee has broken the law, caused harm to veterans, or have violated the public trust, they should be terminated immediately. Instead, due to overly cumbersome and lengthy arbitrations as well as extensive bureaucratic red tape, VA has not been able to remove employees as quickly as we would have liked.
Quote examples
David Cameron
British Politician
The EU must be able to act with the speed and flexibility of a network, not the cumbersome rigidity of a bloc. We must not be weighed down by an insistence on a one size fits all approach which implies that all countries want the same level of integration. The fact is that they don't and we shouldn't assert that they do.
Quote examples
William Mougayar
Canadian Businessman
For the first time, companies can be their own payment processors without the cumbersome or costly aspects of traditional financial settlement options. Tokens offer a much lower barrier for processing end-to-end transactions inside a given market.
Quote examples
Carlos Ghosn
Brazilian Businessman
Cars have a large engine in the front and you have a gearbox, which is cumbersome. Electric cars don't have this problem. The motor is much smaller, the battery is below you. This will allow you to play with different shapes.
Quote examples
Lawrence Lessig
American Educator
This does not mean that every copyright must prove its value initially. That would be a far too cumbersome system of control. But it does mean that every system or category of copyright or patent should prove its worth.
Quote examples
Benigno Aquino III
Filipino Politician
Part of my mandate is to curb corruption and streamline a cumbersome, graft-ridden bureaucracy, to put resources where they will provide the clearest results, and to untangle a complicated regulatory environment.
Quote examples
Barry Ritholtz
American Author
The way we finance homes in this country is slow, filled with middlemen, who run a nonstandardized evaluation process. This makes financing a home cumbersome and difficult.
Quote examples
Heather Mac Donald
American Editor
Obamacare's terrifyingly cumbersome, competition-hostile apparatus for controlling medical costs is one of its most obvious flaws.
Quote examples
Guy Fieri
American Businessman
I've never been an apron fan; it's all too cumbersome to me.
Quote examples
Neelam Kothari
The whole process of getting cards printed is so cumbersome.
Quote examples
David Shulkin
American Public Servant
If there is evidence that an employee has broken the law, caused harm to veterans, or have violated the public trust, they should be terminated immediately. Instead, due to overly cumbersome and lengthy arbitrations as well as extensive bureaucratic red tape, VA has not been able to remove employees as quickly as we would have liked.
Quote examples
David Cameron
British Politician
The EU must be able to act with the speed and flexibility of a network, not the cumbersome rigidity of a bloc. We must not be weighed down by an insistence on a one size fits all approach which implies that all countries want the same level of integration. The fact is that they don't and we shouldn't assert that they do.
Quote examples
William Mougayar
Canadian Businessman
For the first time, companies can be their own payment processors without the cumbersome or costly aspects of traditional financial settlement options. Tokens offer a much lower barrier for processing end-to-end transactions inside a given market.
Quote examples
Carlos Ghosn
Brazilian Businessman
Cars have a large engine in the front and you have a gearbox, which is cumbersome. Electric cars don't have this problem. The motor is much smaller, the battery is below you. This will allow you to play with different shapes.
Quote examples
Lawrence Lessig
American Educator
This does not mean that every copyright must prove its value initially. That would be a far too cumbersome system of control. But it does mean that every system or category of copyright or patent should prove its worth.
Quote examples
Benigno Aquino III
Filipino Politician
Part of my mandate is to curb corruption and streamline a cumbersome, graft-ridden bureaucracy, to put resources where they will provide the clearest results, and to untangle a complicated regulatory environment.
Quote examples
Barry Ritholtz
American Author
The way we finance homes in this country is slow, filled with middlemen, who run a nonstandardized evaluation process. This makes financing a home cumbersome and difficult.
Quote examples
Heather Mac Donald
American Editor
Obamacare's terrifyingly cumbersome, competition-hostile apparatus for controlling medical costs is one of its most obvious flaws.
Quote examples
Guy Fieri
American Businessman
I've never been an apron fan; it's all too cumbersome to me.
Quote examples
Neelam Kothari
The whole process of getting cards printed is so cumbersome.
Example 1 of 10
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